About "One World, One Health"

Health experts from around the world met on September
29, 2004 for a symposium focused on the current and potential movements
of diseases among human, domestic animal, and wildlife populations
organized by the Wildlife Conservation Society and hosted by The
Rockefeller University. Using case studies on Ebola, Avian Influenza,
and Chronic Wasting Disease as examples, the assembled expert panelists
delineated priorities for an international, interdisciplinary approach
for combating threats to the health of life on Earth.

The product—called the “Manhattan Principles”
by the organizers of the “One World, One Health” event,
lists 12 recommendations (see below) for establishing a more holistic
approach to preventing epidemic / epizootic disease and for maintaining
ecosystem integrity for the benefit of humans, their domesticated
animals, and the foundational biodiversity that supports us all.

Representatives from the World Health Organization;
the UN Food and Agriculture Organization; the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention; the United States Geological Survey National
Wildlife Health Center; the United States Department of Agriculture;
the Canadian Cooperative Wildlife Health Centre; the Laboratoire
Nationale de Sante Publique of Brazzaville, Republic of Congo; the
IUCN Commission on Environmental Law; and the Wildlife Conservation
Society were among the many participants.

The Manhattan Principles on
“One World, One Health”

Recent outbreaks of West Nile Virus, Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever, SARS,
Monkeypox, Mad Cow Disease and Avian Influenza remind us that human
and animal health are intimately connected. A broader understanding
of health and disease demands a unity of approach achievable only
through a consilience of human, domestic animal and wildlife health
- One Health. Phenomena such as species loss, habitat
degradation, pollution, invasive alien species, and global climate
change are fundamentally altering life on our planet from terrestrial
wilderness and ocean depths to the most densely populated cities.
The rise of emerging and resurging infectious diseases threatens
not only humans (and their food supplies and economies), but also
the fauna and flora comprising the critically needed biodiversity
that supports the living infrastructure of our world. The earnestness
and effectiveness of humankind’s environmental stewardship
and our future health have never been more clearly linked. To win
the disease battles of the 21st Century while ensuring the biological
integrity of the Earth for future generations requires interdisciplinary
and cross-sectoral approaches to disease prevention, surveillance,
monitoring, control and mitigation as well as to environmental conservation
more broadly.

We urge the world’s leaders, civil society, the global health
community and institutions of science to:

1. Recognize the essential link between human, domestic animal and
wildlife health and the threat disease poses to people, their food
supplies and economies, and the biodiversity essential to maintaining
the healthy environments and functioning ecosystems we all require.

2. Recognize that decisions regarding land and water use have real
implications for health. Alterations in the resilience of ecosystems
and shifts in patterns of disease emergence and spread manifest
themselves when we fail to recognize this relationship.

3. Include wildlife health science as an essential component of
global disease prevention, surveillance, monitoring, control and
mitigation.

5. Devise adaptive, holistic and forward-looking approaches to the
prevention, surveillance, monitoring, control and mitigation of
emerging and resurging diseases that take the complex interconnections
among species into full account.

7. Reduce the demand for and better regulate the international live
wildlife and bushmeat trade not only to protect wildlife populations
but to lessen the risks of disease movement, cross-species transmission,
and the development of novel pathogen-host relationships. The costs
of this worldwide trade in terms of impacts on public health, agriculture
and conservation are enormous, and the global community must address
this trade as the real threat it is to global socioeconomic security.

8. Restrict the mass culling of free-ranging wildlife species for
disease control to situations where there is a multidisciplinary,
international scientific consensus that a wildlife population poses
an urgent, significant threat to human health, food security, or
wildlife health more broadly.

9. Increase investment in the global human and animal health infrastructure
commensurate with the serious nature of emerging and resurging disease
threats to people, domestic animals and wildlife. Enhanced capacity
for global human and animal health surveillance and for clear, timely
information-sharing (that takes language barriers into account)
can only help improve coordination of responses among governmental
and nongovernmental agencies, public and animal health institutions,
vaccine / pharmaceutical manufacturers, and other stakeholders.

10. Form collaborative relationships among governments, local people,
and the private and public (i.e.- non-profit) sectors to meet the
challenges of global health and biodiversity conservation.

11. Provide adequate resources and support for global wildlife health
surveillance networks that exchange disease information with the
public health and agricultural animal health communities as part
of early warning systems for the emergence and resurgence of disease
threats.

12. Invest in educating and raising awareness among the world’s
people and in influencing the policy process to increase recognition
that we must better understand the relationships between health
and ecosystem integrity to succeed in improving prospects for a
healthier planet.

It is clear that no one discipline or sector of society has enough
knowledge and resources to prevent the emergence or resurgence of
diseases in today’s globalized world. No one nation can reverse
the patterns of habitat loss and extinction that can and do undermine
the health of people and animals. Only by breaking down the barriers
among agencies, individuals, specialties and sectors can we unleash
the innovation and expertise needed to meet the many serious challenges
to the health of people, domestic animals, and wildlife and to the
integrity of ecosystems. Solving today’s threats and tomorrow’s
problems cannot be accomplished with yesterday’s approaches.
We are in an era of “One World, One Health” and we must
devise adaptive, forward-looking and multidisciplinary solutions
to the challenges that undoubtedly lie ahead.